Opinion You are what Google thinks you are

Some forty result pages later,Devi finally found a reference to herself. She was mentioned in the passing as an attendee at a Bangalore Page Three event. There was no mention of her winemaking career at one of India’s leading vineyards,Grover,or her being the first Indian to be on a judging panel at an international winemaking event. There was no mention of her work as a practicing pediatrician. There was no talk of her antics as a crazed fan of Doors singer Jim Morrison at his grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Like millions of Indians born and bred in the pre-Internet era,Devi was paying the price of being oblivious to Google and blogs,YouTube,Facebook and Twitter. And LinkedIn. “LinkedIn? What’s that?” she asks. By accident or by choice,Devi has preferred to shake hands,hand out cards and make friends in the real world.

While much of the globe races on to establish themselves in cyberspace,Devi and many other Indians find themselves left behind. Except for an e-mail address,Devi was ‘virtually’ anonymous. And like thousands of privileged Indians around her,she is feeling the heat despite living in a country where Internet penetration is extremely low.

Should Devi sign up and move to a flatter,faster,more frantic mode of communication? That may seem an abomination in India where life still moves relatively slowly. It is still okay to return last week’s phone call today. Social networks include your colleagues,their families,your next door neighbours,their nosy relatives and your former classmates. Before Twitter came your aunt who passed on a nasty piece of gossip to the entire world with as much efficiency.

But if keeping up with the furious pace of the Internet means drawing level with the outside world,then yes,says Devi,who has recently moved on to a new job as brand ambassador at an upstart winery called Nandi Valley in Bangalore. “I haven’t kept up with the rest of the world,it is time for me to catch up”.

To set her up on Facebook,Devi enlisted her 11-year old son and then connected with her old schoolmates. When she goes out for meetings,such as the one with me,she checks people out on Facebook.

She wants to soon launch her own website,she says. She wants to blog passionately about wine drinking. She wants to follow minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor on the hottest Internet rage Twitter — the instant,incessant micro-blogging site where users communicate their state of being in 140 characters or less and then amass ‘followers’.

Devi is well aware that once she is all connected,work will interrupt her privacy. Her personal life will invariably intrude on work. The lines between the two will eventually smudge.

But as one of the few Indian women in wine making,perhaps the only one,she wants the Internet to maximise life’s opportunities. “I want the Internet to do what I haven’t been able to do so far — renew old friendships,make new connections and market me,” says Devi.

She may even use the Internet to start planning her pilgrimage to Paris to coincide with Jim Morrison’s 40th death anniversary in 2011. Her plans for that event could make her a sensation in these times of YouTube,Facebook and Twitter. When the guard at the grave takes a restroom break,Devi intends to jump the fence and lie alongside Morrison’s gravestone.

saritha.rai@expressindia.com